Systems and methods have been disclosed to insert advertisements into software applications (“apps”) designed to run on digital devices such as mobile phones, smartphones, personal computers and laptop computers. These approaches involve modifying an existing app, or creating a new app, so that the app will display advertisements on the display screen of the digital device. Such advertisements are typically displayed immediately after an app is run on a digital device or in a portion of the digital device's display screen while the app is running on the digital device.
Such advertisements may be embedded in the app and may be served from a remote server. Such apps are provided to end users free of charge, whereby the application publishers are compensated by the advertisers. Where the app is designed to run on a mobile device, displaying an advertisement while the application is running typically involves reserving a small portion of the app's display on the mobile device for the advertisements and/or within the load-up screen of the app.
In some cases a user may be able to click on an advertisement and thereby be provided with more extensive advertising content, typically provided directly by a server operated by the advertiser.
The advertisements displayed to users by such apps are typically delivered in a non-discriminatory fashion to each user of a modified app. Some approaches to better targeting advertisements to particular users have been devised based on information that the modified app obtains from the user or from the user's device. Such approaches are limited by the availability of such information and the user's willingness to provide it. When requested to provide information, users may refuse or enter false information.
Such apps often include provision for tracking effectiveness of the advertisements by tracking the number of times users click on advertisements or by tracking the number of times an advertisement is presented to users. The usefulness of such information is limited by the limited information available about the users.
Such apps are typically distributed only in such form at no cost to the user, and may be inferior in functionality and quality to apps that users pay to download and use. Users are generally not willing to view advertisements in apps that they pay for. They also may not be willing to accept advertisements in free apps that are of low quality. Even though the app may be free, the user still must invest time and resources to download, install and use such apps.
Advertisers often give away useful physical items that are normally sold at a cost, such as pens and pocket knives, as promotional tools. They may modify the items to include advertising. A consumer may thereby obtain at no cost a functional item that the consumer recognizes has value. Consumers are generally much more likely to retain and use such items that they perceive have value than, for example, a marketing item containing advertising that is provided to consumers only as an advertising tool. The apps containing advertising disclosed in the prior art are analogous to such advertising tools.